lil gremlin, on 04 November 2009 - 07:29 PM, said:
were only closetted greek artisans to see the depictions then? would nobody correct them? you claim that giant quadrupedal winged dragons were frequently seen at this time, and even worshipped.....your argument is inconsistant.
zeus was not a dragon.....even at the time of that myth's representation, a drakon was a mythical big snake.
the process of orientalising brought eastern conceptions of composite draconic forms into greek culture.....this happened only in the mid to late 4th century bc to any significant level (in terms of 'hellenism').
jerusalem was within the hellenistic world, so was babylon, and persis, and alexandria eschate (in afghanistan).....this does not mean that all the inhabitants were greek or had a purist greek culture.....it was more of a melting pot of cultures, with greek as the main stock. To say that winged and limbed ketos was worshiped in the hellenistic world is neither a revellation nor particularly noteworthy.....the levantine form of the 'wild unruly winter sea' did (in the 4th and 3rd Century) become the 'classical' mode of representing the ketos, but it was not always so. It was not based on eyewitness accounts, but on copying art forms and metaphysical concepts.
No, dragons seem to have left direct human contact once the cultures were fairly developed. A good yardstick for Eurasian cultures would be the beginning of the iron age. One of the last major examples of dragon involvement in human activities appears tot be Yahweh's deliverance of the Hebrews. Therefore Greek artisans of the classical period used their best guess as to what the Drakaons looked like, until further explorations to the east brought them in contact with the real creatures, then no longer required to remain in direct contact with humans, in their roles as gods, but still seen, as so many ancient and medieval accounts attest to.
Since the ancient legends clearly state Zeus became a drakon on the most intimate occassions (fornicating with other drakons), and most desperate ones (fighting other drakons including his own mother), the logical assumption is that this would be his true form (if real at all, of course). This supposed shapeshifting is quite impossible however, so it is logical that these Drakons, like the sumerian, chinese, aztec, etc dragon deities probably had human surrogates that 'posed' as them for mundane contacts with human worshippers, and thus we have the represntatio of more fmilar human forms as well as the reptilian ones.
Your claim that Zeus is not a drakon despite the ancient evidence that clerly indicates that he is, is simply your opinion. There are a number of other clues as well, such as accounts of him swallowing his children alive, an ability impossible for humans but clearly reptilian.
The 'anthropomorhising' of earlier reptilian deities to humans ones is a common trait in religions/beliefs as the dragons played less and less of a role among mankind. A more recent example was Christianity's morphing of the Seraphim 'dragons' from winged reptiles to swan winged, humanoid 'Christmas Card' angels.
"No doubt but there is none other beeste comparable to the mightie dragon in awesome power and majestie, and few so worthie of the diligent studies of wise men."
--Gildas Magnus, Ars Draconis, 1465
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or maybe its just not a thunderbird in alaska and its just a winged reptile aka a dinosaur aka not a dragon 
